Cardinal Cahal Daly

This is one of eight cases in the period 1994 to 2006 in which false sexual allegations were made against an Irish Bishop. Cardinal Cahal Daly was Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in 1994.

In November 1994 Pat Rabbitte suggested in the Dail (Irish Parliament) that there had been a conspiracy between Cardinal Daly and the Attorney General Harry Whelehan to protect a paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth. In the confusion and hysteria that followed the Irish Government fell. In the Government that followed Pat Rabbitte got a specially created "Super-Junior" Ministry that enabled him to participate in Cabinet meetings.

In April 2010, four months after the death of the retired Cardinal, the media belatedly reported that in 1994 he had brokered an arrangement with the RUC to arrest Brendan Smyth, because he was dis-satisfied with the way that Fr Smyth's abbot was dealing with the issue. [As Father Smyth was a member of a religious order, Cardinal Daly never had any authority over him; the authority of Bishops is confined to "secular" (i.e. ordinary parish) clergy.]